Good morning! It’s time to check in on our weekend spending.

I had a blind spending weekend, which meant that I didn’t attempt to estimate how much I’d spend this weekend, because my friends and I were planning on taking out a very good friend out for her birthday, and money wasn’t going to be an issue. We ended up at Momofuku Noodle Bar for their $100 fried chicken dinner, and ordered additional plates of pork and oyster buns, and plenty of beer. I had pulled out plenty of cash from the ATM in anticipation of paying for the birthday girl, but her fiance insisted on paying the entire check, and we fought him about it for a bit (he won). It was a fun time, and the birthday girl was content as can be. I paid $0 thanks to her handsome and generous fiance (I hope he’s reading this).

We decided to walk around a bit after our big meal, and stopped by a wine shop, where I had the birthday girl pick out whatever she wanted. She chose a bottle of Italian rose: $20.

I used Sunday to recover and spent $2.40 for coffee, and then $45.28 at the grocery store.

Total: $67.68

Although it was a blind spending weekend, I had anticipated spending more than $200. I’m planning on getting something nice for our handsome friend as a thank you gift. How did you do?

To: Logan
From: Mama
Subject: (no subject)

What do you want for your birthday? Don’t say money to pay your bills.

LOVE, MOM

This weekend we celebrated my nephew’s second birthday. He ate chips and guacamole (or rather, ate guacamole using a chip as a utensil) and played with three kinds of train sets. He hated the happy birthday song, but liked the part where we said his name. He ignored his piece of cake. When he started to get tired and had enough of the party, he went around to each guest and gently prodded them: “Bye.”

People brought presents, and he helped open them. His eyes only lit up at one, the first, a locomotive that was also bubble blower. The accompanying gallon jug of bubble solution also proved to be moderately interesting. The rest of the gifts—a drum, a bathing suit, some pajamas, baby’s first golf set, a pint-sized recliner, a trash truck, and on and on, will be loved and enjoyed, sometime, I’m sure. Maybe.

Aunt of the year, I didn’t get him anything. 

I’d wanted to get him the perfect something, but I’d run out of time, of money, of ideas. My quest for a gift brought me to a toy store, one of the nice ones, with wooden kitchens and felt play food and a section marked “proudly made in the USA.” Stuffed animals are always irresistible, but having just culled through my own collection on my last trip home, I was wary of burdening him with an additional teddy bear that it would hurt his heart to throw away in twenty-five years (or fewer-I can be sentimental). Nothing else spoke to me. He loves trains, but he has trains. He loves being outside, but he lives next to a park. He doesn’t need anything, and he’s too young to appreciate a tiny thing meant only to say: “I considered you.”

I left the toy store empty-handed, then went to a clothing shop that had lots of lovely little boy things. I looked at little desert boots and denim jackets and madras shorts and wanted to get him one of everything, but got him nothing. Babies don’t care about clothes.

I sat on my hands during the present-opening. I felt a pang of regret at as I watched his excitement at the bubble train, and I wished that I had gotten it for him. That I had purchased something and put it in his hands and made him happy. But then someone had something he wanted and he was off after other things, bubble train forgotten, for now.

And then I realized: Babies don’t give a shit about presents.

Most of the presents I’ve bought for him during his little life have been for a future version of himself: a drawing of his parents, a Swedish knapsack that is the size that he is now, an Italian wool blazer that will fit him in a few years, stacks of books. At Christmas I did get him a red union suit. He looked adorable. He didn’t care.

I’d considered opening some kind of account for him, and every birthday and holiday putting in the $20 or $40 or whatever that I would have spent on plastic crap. It seemed complicated. So now my plan is that one day I’ll write him a check, a good and big one, equalling years and years of plastic toys not purchased. I’ll tell him not to spend it all in one place, pause, and then tell him that actually, he can spend it wherever he wants. Happy birthday, baby.

Photo Credit: flickr/protohiro

Logan Sachon: Your birthday is in a few weeks, but your birthday dinner is this weekend, AMIRIGHT?

Mike Dang: Yeah, it was the only weekend people seemed to be free. The only thing I want this year is a quiet dinner with people I love, and it doesn’t matter to me if it’s not on my actual birthday.

Logan: I’m trying to decide whether to ask you, the birthday boy, to … lend me money to pay for your birthday dinner, or to ask one of the other participants — who I don’t know as well — to lend me money to pay for your dinner.

Mike: Does that mean you’re asking me right now?

Logan: Well. I’m asking for your opinion on this matter. Let’s pretend it’s for someone else. So the obvious answer is to not go, right? Maybe just like, meet for a drink before or after. That is What I Should Do. 

Mike: Oh no. Logan! What I want for my birthday isn’t for someone to buy me dinner. What I want for my birthday is to be with the people I love. And I love you! And I want you there, and I will pay for you to be there because it’ll make me happy.

Logan: Well I don’t want you to pay for me to be there. But: I am not ashamed to ask you (or anyone else, for that matter) for a loan. And this would only be a matter of days. So even though The Responsible Thing would be to say that I can’t go … I kind of figured that I could make this one work.

Mike: Well. You have met the other participants of this dinner maybe two or three times? I think it’d be weird to ask them to lend you the money. So I guess I should be the one to lend you the money for my birthday dinner.

Logan: Oh god, that sounds so terrible.

Mike: I know you’re good for it. You have always paid me back, although I think it’s funny that you need to borrow money from me to do something nice for me.

Logan: Yes, well. This is a bad week for me, monetarily, Mike Dang. Between taxes and running out of money for rent and and then having to borrow money from you for your own birthday, I feel LIKE AN IDIOT.

Mike: When you get your next paycheck, we’re going to sit down and work out some kind of plan so that it doesn’t all disappear again before you get your next one. We will probably write about it for this here website. We will help you GET A GRIP.

Logan: But also, Mike. Being responsible is so BORING. Like sitting down and making a plan for my money sounds like the most boring thing. Also: If I become “good with money,” will I still be me? I mean, you are very lucky in that the things you like to do line up with not spending money (am I wrong or do you truly enjoy cooking meals for yourself and doing laundry and just being the most responsible and excellent person ever?) I missed that gene, somehow. I just don’t know if my personality and “being responsible” jive.

Mike: Yeah, I really do like the things I do, fortunately! But your identity is not defined by whether you are good or bad with money. You are a person who loves children (especially your nephew). You love staying on top of pop culture. You love nesting, and singing in the office, and not eating meat. And more than anything, you are kind, and you like doing kind things for people. But you cannot buy a round of drinks, or buy nice wedding gifts, or buy the birthday boy dinner if you don’t have any money. You can’t be bad at money and be this amazing kind person that you want to be

Logan: MIKE DANG YOU ARE TOO NICE TO ME STOP IT. And for the record, I don’t actually like children. Only my nephew. But I see what you mean! YOU MAKE A GOOD POINT. I mean, I guess it’s one I’ve figured out before, but I usually just use credit cards to to put off the inevitable realization I need to deal with my money. But: now they’re all cut up or maxed out, so it’s time to get real, I guess.

Mike: Well, let’s get this show on the road then! You have always had a little hitch in your get-along. It’s going to take a little work, but we’ll make you better with your money.

Logan: Ugh, I don’t wannnnnaaaaaa. Also: This narrative seems totally contrived. I’d like to state for the record that I’ve been talking about how I’m going to be better with money for years, and nothing has happened yet, so I really dont expect any major transformation. Certainly not overnight. Maybe I’ll get approved for a new credit card! YOU NEVER KNOW.

Photo: Flickr/Althea Chang

You know who sometimes forgets my birthday? My mom.

You know who never forgets my birthday? All the big businesses who have my personal data stored in their vaults, or clouds, or whatever.

To celebrate my upcoming birthday, Starbucks is giving me a free drink.

One of my banks is giving me … fake money to spend?

Thanks?